Category Archives: Music

Let’s hear it for the Oscars. On the whole, America’s premier awards show bellied up to the bar and provided three plus hours of quality entertainment. Ellen DeGeneres ordered pizzas and took a group selfie that a few people liked, Gravity swept nearly every minor award and Leonardo DiCaprio went home empty handed once again. By most measures, it was a grand old night to honor the stars.

Except for one undeserving winner. “Let it Go” taking Best Original Song is straight up bollocks, as folks across the pond might say. (Not that there are any ties to the United Kingdom in this story, the word just popped into my head and had to be released into print.) Continue reading →

If The Wolf of Wall Street has taught us anything, it’s that any true rhythm comes from beating on one’s chest. Matthew McConaughey’s legendary tutelage of Leonardo DiCaprio won’t soon be forgotten, and from the moment McConaughey laid down his impromptu beat, it seemed destined for bigger things.

One of the best things about television’s marriage to music is seeing live performances of songs. This is especially true of the ’80s and in this case, John Parr.

“St. Elmo’s Fire” is probably a better song than it was a movie and when you watch these videos of John Parr completely crush it with his trademark American guitar, the song becomes even better. The movie is still mediocre, though.

Your energy reserves are depleted from dragging yourself out of bed on Monday, but the sanctity of the weekend is still nowhere in sight. Worry not, friends: Pharrell Williams has the perfect remedy for your early week sadness.

All things considered, the Super Bowl is a pretty spectacular evening.

Dedicated fans and oblivious bystanders band together to watch the most popular single night in all of sport, even if the latter group spends just as much time failing at Flappy Bird and shushing the room during commercials like they’re the main attraction. It’s an excuse to purchase copious amounts of processed fats and sugars and concoct ridiculous culinary combinations (think anything edible, wrapped in bacon) and send a glorious season of football off in style. But there’s one area of the game where America needs to throw the challenge flag; the halftime show.

We’ve seen it a million times before: Athletes wanna be rappers and rappers wanna be athletes. Me, personally, I’d be cool with being in either category, but most of the time these crossovers — myself included — turn out with disastrous results.

This was not the case at Shane Battier’s annual karaoke event, however, as Miami Heat teammates LeBron James and Michael Beasley did a duet to Juvenile’s “Back That Azz Up” that is simply fantastic.

Ellen DeGeneres Justin Bieber got arrested last night and it unified Twitter in a way that I thought only the death of Osama bin Laden could do. Bieber, a 19 year-old pop star that never actually had a chance of being a normal human being, got popped by Miami Beach Police Wednesday night for allegedly drag racing, resisting arrest without violence and copping to drinking, smoking weed and prescription drugs. It’s a tale as old as time.

It piled up 26 million YouTube views in two months. It has more dislikes than the city of Orlando has people. The budget for the music video could have been into seven figures as easily as it could have been done in a cheap-o do-it-yourself studio. Hey, the latter worked for Rebecca Black.

“Bound 2”, the cherry on top of the Yeezus sundae, has been received with mixed emotions, to say the least. Some see it as another iteration of West trolling the public with purposefully basic content, while others are calling it a monument to Ye’s ego, an ego that requires more feeding than the elephant exhibit at your local zoo.

Today I celebrate the 43rd birthday of one of my favorite rappers of all-time: Ghostface Killah. If you’re unfamiliar with GFK — otherwise known as Tony Starks, Ironman, Pretty Toney, Ghost Deini and many other aliases — you might know him as one of the members of the rap supergroup the Wu-Tang Clan. If you don’t know the Wu-Tang Clan, I’m not sure why you’re reading Poor Scholars, but I’ll let it slide since this is a celebration.

Anyways, Ghostface is one of my favorite emcees because he’s a vivid storyteller that gets incredibly animated during his verses. In a nutshell: It’s just fun to listen to this dude spin hood narratives with the energy he brings to the table.

So in honor of GFK’s birthday, here is the story of a college-aged me — Scott Phillips — meeting Ghostface Killah during a meet-and-greet at DePaul University prior to the release of his fifth album, FishScale.